12:40 am - Eastwick and Images of WomenI've been enjoying Eastwick, it's well written, very well acted, fun, and unlike much TV, not particularly offensive to either the female or the male characters. However, there's something else that I'm seeing on this show that is also surprising and positive, the choice made for the female actors. We have three female leads and one female supporting actress. Two of the leads are typically ultra-thin, but Roxie is played by Rebecca Romijn, [[1]] who is slender and very attractive, but also definitely not as exceptionally (and usually quite disturbingly) skinny as most women on US TV, and also playing a character who is clearly in her mid 30s.

Even better, the supporting character Penny, played by Sara Rue, at first glance looks like the typical not-particularly skinny female sidekick, of the sort who on most shows who are fairly pathetic and never has any sex or romance, because on most TV, women who are not skinny are written as sexless and pathetic. However, on Eastwick, Penny is becoming a more important character and is also romantically involved with Jamie who is arguably the sexiest male character on the show. So, in addition to the other good things about the show, there are two female characters who look like (attractive and by no remote stretch of the imagination even slightly overweight) human beings rather than like famine victims or people with a wasting illness. It's sad that this is progress on US TV, but it most definitely is.

[[1]] As stated in her wikipedia article, Rebecca Romijn is widely considered to be extremely beautiful, which clearly demonstrates that many people think that women need not be exceptionally thin to be impressively attractive, thus making the great prevalence of ultra-thin women on US TV somewhat puzzling.Current Mood:pleased

I'm pretty happy with what I've seen of the show. I have a few episodes to catch up on, but from what I've seen it's definitely decent. I think eventually we're going to see some changes in network programming toward women who don't look like they just stepped out of Auschwitz. It seems to be the trend on European television and many of the fashion shows now have minimum weight requirements because of the number of models that have starved themselves to death. We tend to lag about 7-10 years behind so give it time, but I think eventually we'll catch on.

Could you possibly stop describing extremely thin builds as "disturbing" and "looking like famine victims" and so forth? You've done it a few times recently that I've noticed. I have an unusually skinny frame, entirely without diet or illness, and I really don't like being told my appearance is so terrible it offends you to see representations of it. That's just policing women's bodies in the other direction. The problem isn't the builds of the very thin actresses; it's that they're being selected to the exclusion of all others.

I apologize. I know a number of skinny women, and I'm quite skinny. However, most of the women in major roles on US TV are in a whole different category - they look unhealthy to me in a way that most skinny people don't and also considerably thinner than almost anyone that I've ever met.